National Science Day, observed annually on 28 February to mark C.V. Raman’s discovery of the Raman Effect, honours India’s enduring faith in reason, evidence and the courage to question.

Conceived not as a ritual tribute to laboratories but as a reaffirmation of rational inquiry, it echoes the Indian Constitution’s unique mandate under Article 51A(h), which calls on citizens to develop ‘the scientific temper, humanism and a spirit of inquiry’. Yet, mounting evidence suggests this constitutional promise is being eroded, not strengthened, by current political priorities.

Independent India’s relationship with science was not accidental. It was shaped by visionaries like Jawaharlal Nehru, who saw scientific temper as a cultural value rather than a technical skill. In his words, ‘the scientific temper is a way of life, a process of thinking, a method of acting and associating with our fellow men’. Pandit Nehru’s correspondence and personal friendship with Albert Einstein reflected a shared conviction that scientific thinking was inseparable from freedom and democracy. Einstein warned repeatedly that ‘nationalism and dogma were enemies of reason’, while Nehru argued that a ‘scientific temper was essential to resist superstition, communalism and blind authority’. This vision informed the creation of institutions such as the IITs, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Science, in this imagination, was not subservient to political power but a check on it.

Embedding ‘scientific temper’ in the Constitution was not symbolic. When Article 51A was expanded in 1976, the inclusion of ‘scientific temper’ alongside secularism and harmony reflected the recognition that democracy could not survive without a rational public culture. For decades, this ethos translated into a steady expansion of higher education, public-funded research and scientific autonomy. Even amid political instability, the principle that scientific knowledge must be evidence-driven and open to challenge was broadly respected across governments.

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However, since 2014, a discernible shift has taken shape. According to the latest Economic Survey, India’s public expenditure on research and development has remained static at roughly 0.7 per cent of GDP—far below economies such as the United States, China and Israel, which invest anywhere between 2.5 and 5 per cent. Despite sustained policy rhetoric around innovation and self-reliance, funding for fundamental research has........

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